An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool • Hacker News Board

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#11

Post by terpua » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 12:07 PM UTC

trapper wrote: post #9

terpua wrote: post #4

I worked for a Fortune 500 out of college for 1 year. That was 1996. I have been an entrepreneur ever since with some success and lots of failures. I have been a lone founder to employing 40+ people. It's hard, lonely (most of the time) work but it's rewarding and invigorating. And you learn a ton (about business, yourself and life). I transplanted to Manila (from SV a few years ago) trying to convince young local ha…

Why the move to Manila? What is the difference in your opinion? Has it made success harder?

Upsides: Manila is way cheaper to live. I'm bootstrapping so it made/makes sense. Salaries are also cheap.

If your startup is B2B, Manila is great b/c the businesses here are so cheap. So you can find out if you are solving a real pain point, not a "nice to have".

English is an official language so communications is mostly a non-issue.

Apple opened an online store so hackers now have more options without paying 50% over US prices.

Downsides: startup community is non-existent. Graduates tend to flock to MSFT, IBM, etc. for a chance to go to the states but with the economic downturn and uncertain job security, that is changing. It's also harder to find the right kind of hackers for startups.

If you are looking for funding, it's very difficult.

Those are the major trade-offs. All in all, it was worth it for me and I now have a chance to positively affect the world wide movement towards entrepreneurship locally.

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#12

Post by thaumaturgy » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 12:19 PM UTC

randomwalker wrote: post #3

Interesting article overall, but one clueless sentence amused me: "Meg Whitman grew rich by developing an online marketplace, eBay, where people could buy and sell without ever meeting." I recommend the book Paypal Wars . It was written by one of the "Paypal mafia." The book goes into quite a bit of detail about the early Paypal-eBay story, with an epilogue covering events until 2006. The reality is exactly the oppos…

This will become important to know as Whitman is running for Governor of California in 2010.

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#13

Post by thaumaturgy » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 12:20 PM UTC

jeremyw wrote: post #10

davidw wrote: post #5

If it's getting trendy, maybe now is a good time to go work for some huge behemoth corporation?:-)

Or start one. The smart contrarian will see early the comeback for corporate monoliths. And very slowly begin his work. :)

Shhhh.

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#14

Post by moe » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 1:19 PM UTC

randomwalker wrote: post #3

Interesting article overall, but one clueless sentence amused me: "Meg Whitman grew rich by developing an online marketplace, eBay, where people could buy and sell without ever meeting." I recommend the book Paypal Wars . It was written by one of the "Paypal mafia." The book goes into quite a bit of detail about the early Paypal-eBay story, with an epilogue covering events until 2006. The reality is exactly the oppos…

Thanks for providing that insight. I read that story in an online article sometime ago - and couldn't sum it up better.

Also I personally know a few people who work in an european eBay cubicle farm and can attest (through second-hand knowledge) to their abysmal corporate culture. Some of the stories I hear are straight dilbert material - and sadly that seems to be the rule, rather than the exception.

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#15

Post by davidw » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 1:38 PM UTC

pixelmonkey wrote: post #7

I just (voluntarily) left a comfortable job at a behemoth corporation to start my own company with a friend from college. I thought I was being brave, but apparently I'm just succumbing to a fad? I don't think it's that starting a business is "cool"; I mean, I guess it is, in some sense, although paying for your own health care isn't very cool. For me, this quote was apt: "People’s attitudes to security and risk also…

That's what they mean about changing attitudes though... once upon a time, people got jobs with 'good companies' that made more than a token effort to take care of them even when things were a bit rough. There's value in that if you have a family and kids. Nowadays, though, you're right - the big companies will throw you to the wolves with no second thoughts, so what's the point?

Also, big companies do have a lot of resources that they can bring to bear on problems that startups will never have. Think of all the cool things created by ATT and IBM, for instance, in decades past. However, I think those days are gone, as I am not sure even big companies have the budget to keep around too many "pure" R&D types any more.

> For me, entrepreneurship isn't cool -- it's the only rational option.

I think I agree with this, but sort of grudgingly/sadly... I'm not sure I am or really want to be an "entrepreneur". I like to build cool stuff, not run companies, sell things, bargain with people, and all the businessy things. I think I can learn those to some degree, but I'll never be someone who lives for that part of things. So in some ways it's sort of limiting to feel that "it's the only rational option". I hope that makes sense:-)

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#16

Post by miloshh » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 2:17 PM UTC

An optimistic article, but I wonder if entrepreneurialism has become cool only in very limited circles - like here.

Out in the real world, with the crisis and rising unemployment, it is once again becoming a sign of life success to land a safe job in a large corporation. It seems that getting hired by (say) Google is even more impressive now than a few years ago.

Another thing that worries me is that there are no IPOs anymore, so the only options for small businesses are to stay small (and unimportant) or sell the business to a large corporation (making them even stronger). And with more regulations and bailouts from the government, corporations might just be getting stronger than ever. I hope it is not true, I'll be happy if you prove me wrong.

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#17

Post by laut » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 2:24 PM UTC

terpua wrote: post #4

I worked for a Fortune 500 out of college for 1 year. That was 1996. I have been an entrepreneur ever since with some success and lots of failures. I have been a lone founder to employing 40+ people. It's hard, lonely (most of the time) work but it's rewarding and invigorating. And you learn a ton (about business, yourself and life). I transplanted to Manila (from SV a few years ago) trying to convince young local ha…

What's SV?

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#18

Post by GavinB » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 2:26 PM UTC

jeremyw wrote: post #10

davidw wrote: post #5

If it's getting trendy, maybe now is a good time to go work for some huge behemoth corporation?:-)

Or start one. The smart contrarian will see early the comeback for corporate monoliths. And very slowly begin his work. :)

Figuring out how to make big organizations run nimbly is the next big challenge. Almost all successful start-up businesses will grow into large ones. Figuroug out how to make that transition gracefully and keep some of the agility is a key challenge for future entrepreneurs.

It's also the difference between millionaire and billionaire.

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#19

Post by ryanwaggoner » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 2:29 PM UTC

laut wrote: post #17

terpua wrote: post #4

I worked for a Fortune 500 out of college for 1 year. That was 1996. I have been an entrepreneur ever since with some success and lots of failures. I have been a lone founder to employing 40+ people. It's hard, lonely (most of the time) work but it's rewarding and invigorating. And you learn a ton (about business, yourself and life). I transplanted to Manila (from SV a few years ago) trying to convince young local ha…

What's SV?

Silicon Valley

Re: An idea whose time has come: Entrepreneurialism has become cool

#20

Post by tlb » Fri, Mar 13, 2009, 4:19 PM UTC

As usual, the economist is looking for its keys under the lamppost.

In their graph, "Ease of starting a business" is a measure of how long it takes to process incorporation and tax paperwork. That is not the hard part. The hard part is finding co-founders and investors willing to invest, and customers willing to buy from new companies. It's a function of optimism and risk taking, not on government procedures.